


Quarantine

by ShaneVansen



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, UST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-27
Updated: 2010-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaneVansen/pseuds/ShaneVansen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the end of three days, she was either going to kiss him or kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quarantine

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been looked at by (in no particular order) Elvinborn, Trialia, Tracy, and Ro, so any remaining errors _must_ be mine.
> 
> Complete, utter, cheesy fluff. But don't we all need that sometimes?
> 
> Originally posted to LJ January 2007.

** _Hour 0_ **

If she never had to wear a HazMat suit again, Elizabeth thought, she'd die happy.

Then she remembered _why_ she was wearing the suit, and reconsidered her statement.

Ahead of her, Carson stepped to the side of the isolation room's door and motioned for her and John to enter. Once inside, she stopped and turned around to face the doctor still lingering in the doorway. "You can remove the suits once the room has been sealed," he reminded them, as if they needed to be told twice. "Rodney and Dr. Zelenka are searching the database for information on the pathogens contained in the lab. Until we know what you might have been exposed to, you'll have to remain in isolation."

"And if one of us starts getting sick?" John asked.

Carson looked like he'd been wishing no one would ask that question. "Hopefully we'll know what we're dealing with by then."

"Hopefully," John muttered. Elizabeth and Carson both ignored him.

"Keep me updated," Elizabeth ordered, and Carson nodded before leaving the room, closing the door behind him.

Relieved that she could at last remove the uncomfortable gear, Elizabeth stripped off the red suit that had allowed her and John to be brought to the med lab and tossed it into a corner. John did the same seconds later.

"So," he said, rubbing his hands together. "Don't suppose you brought a deck of cards?"

Elizabeth simply glared at him.

 

** _Hour 7_ **

_ThumpBUMP, thwack. ThumpBUMP, thwack. ThumpBUMP, thwack._

Elizabeth closed her eyes, inhaling deeply to calm herself, before saying "John" in her most warning tone of voice.

_ThumpBUMP, thwack._

He caught the ball and held it, turning his head in her direction. "Elizabeth?"

"Do you really have to do that right now?"

He glanced from her to the ball and back again. "Sorry," he said, not sounding the least bit repentant. She merely went back to the report she was reading.

It couldn't have been more than three minutes later that he began tossing the ball in the air. Elizabeth sighed to herself, but it was considerably less annoying than when he'd been bouncing it off the floor and wall, so she figured she'd deal with it.

The sound of breaking glass had her snapping her head up to take in the broken vials before locking eyes with a sheepish-looking John. "Oops?" he tried.

 

 

**   
_Hour 9_ **

Carson looked down at them from the observation window. "The good news is that there is no sign of any pathogen in your blood work. You both appear to be perfectly healthy."

"And the bad news?"

"You're such a pessimist," John accused, _sotto voce_. He got a raised eyebrow in response.

The doctor either didn't notice their exchange or chose to ignore it. "We've been able to rule out a fair number of contagions to which you may have been exposed, but it's too soon to put you completely in the clear. Drs. McKay and Zelenka have found evidence that at least two of the viruses stored in that particular lab can remain in the body for up to two days without being detected. We're going to keep you both in isolation for seventy-two hours, just to be safe."

Sighing, Elizabeth brought a hand up to rub over her face. "Keep us posted."

 

** _Hour 11_ **

"Where's my ball?"

Elizabeth looked up from her book, feigning innocence. "I'm sorry?"

John stalked closer and she shifted, hoping the bulge of the ball beneath her blanket was sufficiently obscured by her pillow. "Where is my ball?" he repeated, standing right in front of her.

"How should I know?" she deflected, but she knew she'd been found out.

Instead of responding verbally, John grasped her by the upper arm and tugged her off the bed. She yelped his name, already laughing so hard she was short of breath as she attempted to keep her footing while he patted down her pockets before moving on to her bed, yanking the blankets aside. Within seconds, he had his prize.

"Really," he said with mock disappointment. "I expected better of you, Elizabeth. That's such an obvious place to hide it."

Still grinning widely, she tilted her head in acknowledgement. "I'll keep that in mind for next time," she promised.

"See that you do." Tossing the ball in the air, he caught it with a snap and turned back to his area of the iso lab, leaving Elizabeth to her book.

 

 

**   
_Hour 22_ **

It was official: Elizabeth Weir was most decidedly not a morning person.

This was something John had long suspected but had never really _known_. Most of the time he didn't see her until she'd had a chance to wake up. The times they'd been awakened in the middle of the night by some emergency or other he figured adrenaline had kept her going until she could either get back to sleep, or down enough caffeine to keep her functioning until the crisis had passed.

Being locked together in a room for three days, however, meant that he had a first-hand view of her waking process, from her tousle-headed grunts of acknowledgement upon first moving from sleep through her gradual shift to actual sentences. In all, John decided, it took Elizabeth a good hour to wake up. He had to admit, if only to himself, that it was highly amusing how she could barely put together a sentence before her first cup of coffee.

He kind of liked seeing her first thing in the morning.

 

 

**   
_Hour 29_ **

From the corner of her eye, Elizabeth watched John spinning his chair in half-circles as he worked on fitness reports a few feet away from where she reviewed her own files. She was surprised by how well he was taking their temporary incarceration. Despite his obvious boredom, he was much more restrained than she would have predicted.

"You know," John remarked, à propos of nothing, "I really wish there was a shower in here."

"Guess you'll have to make do with sponge baths until we get out of here," she answered distractedly, clicking on the screen so she could add a few comments to the existing report. It never occurred to Elizabeth to think about what she said until she heard John's response.

"You offering?"

Startled, she looked up, only to be met by the flirtatious smile she knew better than to take seriously. "Sorry," she declined. "But maybe Ronon has some free time?"

He scrunched his nose. "I think I'll pass." Then he winked at her. "But you'll let me know if you change your mind?"

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and went back to work. By the end of three days she was either going to kiss him or kill him, she thought whimsically. At the moment, she wasn't laying odds as to which was more likely.

 

 

**   
_Hour 41_ **

John emerged from the bathroom and stopped short as he took in Elizabeth's new attire. "Isn't that mine?" he questioned.

She shrugged, the oversized navy USAF sweatshirt practically swallowing her slim frame. "I was cold."

"And you don't have any of your own clothes to wear?"

"I wasn't wearing my jacket when we were quarantined," Elizabeth defended, "and Andrews didn't bring it when she brought my other clothes. Besides," she added, "it's your fault we're stuck in here."

There was that. "Fine," he acceded. "But I want it back."

The corner of her mouth quirked up in a half-smile that was disturbingly sexy when combined with the fact that she was wearing his shirt. "I'll think about it."

 

 

**   
_Hour 53_ **

Hearing an explosive sigh, John looked away from the DVD currently playing on the laptop he'd set up. Elizabeth was sitting cross-legged on her bed, frowning at her laptop. Something work-related, no doubt, he thought; it seemed as though that was pretty much all she'd been doing the whole time they'd been stuck in isolation. Despite the fact that they really had nothing much to do except sleep, she looked tired.

"Come watch the rest of the movie with me," he invited, not knowing he was going to ask until he'd opened his mouth. Elizabeth looked up, startled. "You work too hard. Take a break."

Seemingly tempted, she flicked her gaze between him and her laptop before nodding and closing the lid. "Okay," she agreed, surprising him. Levering herself off her bed, she walked over and made herself comfortable beside him on his gurney, back against the wall as his was, knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She looked strangely young and lonely, John thought, and then turned his attention back to the movie before he did something stupid.

 

 

**   
_Hour 54_ **

The warm, heavy weight of Elizabeth's head on his shoulder startled him. Cautiously, John craned his head to look at her face, but she appeared to be sound asleep against him. His earlier opinion that she looked tired seemed to have been more accurate than he'd thought.

The way she was leaning against him looked uncomfortable. He was reluctant to wake her, but she would have a hell of a sore neck if he let her sleep like that for long. Deciding on a third alternative, he straightened his legs and then wrapped an arm around Elizabeth, easing her head down to lie in his lap. She sighed a little, rubbing her cheek against his thigh, but didn't wake.

Tentatively, he brushed his hand through her hair. Getting no reaction, John repeated the motion. Before long, he was playing with her hair as she slept and he watched the rest of his movie.

 

 

**   
_Hour 61_ **

Elizabeth woke up lying on her right side. That seemed to be the only normal thing about her situation.

Her head was still blurry with sleep, and it took her a moment to remember that she was in the isolation room. But even that seemed wrong. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the bed she'd been using for the past two and a half days.

Beneath her head, instead of a pillow, there was an arm. Behind her was the decided warmth of another person. And, given that she was still in isolation, there was only one person it could be.

Wriggling carefully, Elizabeth managed to turn onto her left side so that she could see John. He was still asleep, lying on his back, his out-flung arm providing the source of her pillow. She watched him as she tried to recall why she was sleeping next to him, gradually remembering his invitation to watch the movie and realizing that she must have fallen asleep.

John shifted and Elizabeth held her breath as he rolled onto his right side, facing her. His eyes blinked open and he gave her a sleepy half-smile before leaning forward and brushing his lips just barely over hers. "Morning, 'Liz'beth," he mumbled, eyes drifting shut once more.

Too shocked to react, Elizabeth could only stare at him as he sighed and shifted position, drawing her even closer to him. As near as she was, she felt when he began to tense, a confused frown wrinkling his forehead. A few moments later he opened his eyes again, looking far more awake than he had the first time. "Um… sorry?" he offered.

She didn't think he sounded particularly sincere. What scared her was that she didn't want him to be.

Elizabeth knew she'd always had a remarkable ability for self-denial when it came to her personal life. John Sheppard had been placed neatly in the 'do not touch' category of her brain once she'd started to grasp just how much he could mean to her, and she'd managed to keep him there ever since. But the way he was looking at her right then threatened to blow all her finely honed skills straight to hell.

Not allowing herself to over-think, she raised a hand to his face, lightly trailing her fingers over his features: his cheeks, his forehead, his ear.... He watched her unblinkingly, half-open eyes fixed on her face as she watched the movements of her hand. When she touched his lips, his tongue snaked out, the tip flicking against her finger. She unconsciously licked her own lips, only then noticing that her breathing was fast and shallow.

Slowly, she lowered her hand, feeling him tighten his grip on her. Elizabeth drew a deep, steadying breath before raising her eyes to meet his gaze. They watched each other, John's hand moving lightly over her side, but otherwise unmoving. Making a decision, she leaned up to close the small distance between them.

Someone knocked on the door.

Elizabeth jerked in surprise, nearly tumbling to the floor. As it was, she just barely managed to catch herself before scrambling to her feet and backing away from John's bed as Carson entered the room, decked out in full HazMat gear. From her peripheral vision, she saw John sit up and swing his legs over the edge of the bed.

"Good morning," Carson called out cheerfully, and Elizabeth fought to steady her breath as he took a closer look at her. "Are you alright? You look flushed."

His comment made her blush more. "I'm fine, Carson. You just startled me."

He didn't look entirely convinced, but he didn't push. "I'm here to take another blood sample. If everything checks out, you'll be released later today." He gestured at the gurney against which she was leaning. "If you'll just take a seat, I can get started."

Elizabeth eased herself onto the bed, holding out her arm as Carson wrapped the elastic tubing around her bicep and inserted the needle with practiced ease, in spite of his bulky gloves. After he'd finished, she held the cotton ball against the crook of her elbow, waiting for the bleeding to stop as Carson drew a vial of John's blood.

"This should be it," Carson told them as he prepared to leave. "We should have the results in the next few hours."

Then Carson left, and Elizabeth and John proceeded to avoid each other as best they could in a relatively small area.

 

 

**   
_Hour 69_ **

_ThumpBUMP, thwack. ThumpBUMP, thwack. ThumpBUMP, thwack._

John risked a quick look at Elizabeth, who was staring fixedly at her laptop screen. He'd been bouncing the ball for the past half-hour and she hadn't reacted once.

_ThumpBUMP, thwack._

The kiss that morning hadn't been a conscious decision. Only half-awake when he opened his eyes to see Elizabeth lying so close, he hadn't given it a second thought before leaning in and brushing his lips against hers. It had simply been... a good morning kiss. It had taken several seconds for his brain to catch up to his actions and for John to remember that waking up next to his boss was not normal, and that he certainly wasn't supposed to kiss her.

_ThumpBUMP, thwack._

And Elizabeth hadn't looked him in the eye since.

_ThumpBUMP, thwack._

_ **  
Hour 72** _

"Your blood work's clear," Carson announced. "You're both free to leave."

Elizabeth smiled for the first time in what felt like days, but even then it was only half-hearted. "Thank you, Carson."

The doctor tilted his head as he watched her. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asked, taking a step in her direction.

"I'm fine," she tried to placate. "Just a little tired."

He frowned. "I don't want you back to work until tomorrow. Take tonight off."

"I've been off work for three days. I need to–"

"The city will survive twelve more hours without you, Elizabeth. Go get something to eat, relax for a few hours, get a good night's sleep, and you can get back to ordering people around again in the morning."

Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled. "Whatever you say, Carson."

"That's more like it." He turned to John. "Same goes for you, Colonel. Tomorrow's soon enough to go chasing after Wraith."

"You got it, Doc," he drawled in response, Carson chuckling as he left the room.

Elizabeth watched John as he gathered his things from around the room, throwing them in his bag before heading for the door, all without a single glance in her direction. It was her own fault, she knew, for her reaction to what had happened that morning. And if she didn't do something before he left....

"John?"

He paused. For a moment she thought he would continue without acknowledging her, but he turned in her direction. He didn't say anything.

She took a deep breath. "Join me for dinner?"

He tilted his head to the side, eyes narrowing as he assessed her, and Elizabeth forced herself not to look away. Finally, he nodded. "Mess hall, 1800?"

Relieved at his response, she smiled. "I'll see you there."

John tossed a wave in her direction, the corners of his mouth quirking up in a small smile of his own before he left. Elizabeth watched him go, only then gathering up her own belongings and following suit, eager to get to her room. First on her list was a very long, very hot shower.

After that, she had plans for dinner.

_–end– _


End file.
